The Walking the Way to Health Initiative (WHI) aims to get people to ‘walk more’ in their own neighbourhood.

Healthy Walking

©Countryside Agency
The Walking the Way to Health Initiative (WHI) aims to get people to ‘walk more’ in their own neighbourhood.

WHI is an initiative of the British Heart Foundation and Natural England . It benefits from extra funding from the Big Lottery Fund. The Initiative targets ‘sedentary’ people, and communities with relatively poor health. We aim to reach people by developing community-based healthy walking schemes, organising guided walks and sharing leaflets promoting independent walking. All our schemes rely heavily on well-trained volunteers.  

WHI has helped to create over 350 local health walk schemes and has trained over 20,000 volunteer walk leaders. Since 2000, it is estimated that we've encouraged over a million people to walk more.

Recently a booklet called 'A Step in the Right Direction' was produced and distributed throughout the South West detailing and celebrating the achievements of the WHI groups in this region. It is available to download from this web page.

Introduction to Green Exercise
Natural England is building on WHI's success by constructing a bid to the Big Lottery Fund's 'Wellbeing' funding stream with the theme of 'Green Exercise'. A programme of work around health and the natural environment will be part of the future Natural England's corporate strategy and include the promotion of physical activity in the outdoors. 

Working in partnership with a range of organisations, including the mental health charity MIND, the bid aims to generate funds to run a nationwide programme to encourage physical activity and improve mental health, especially in hard-to-reach groups and deprived areas. 

The physical benefits of an active lifestyle and the mental health gains that come with physical activity are widely recognised. However, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the great outdoors (and that can include even small pieces of urban greenspace!) can have positive effects on many aspects of our health. It can encourage us to be more active by providing facilities to walk, cycle and play, but being in nature also helps to reduce stress and generally improve mental health. 

More information about WHI, Green Exercise and to find out more about health walks in the South West can be found on the WHI website